


Be Together

by wtfoctagon



Series: supergirl oneshot series [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Self Harm, bpd!lena if you squint but you only have to squint a little lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:29:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: Lena's had many reactions to her scars over the years. Some bad. Some not as bad. Never good, though. She mostly just wants Kara to see them, have her Reaction, then acclimatize and be able to put it all behind her.prompted by this post: https://lezcorp.tumblr.com/post/159355577692/kara-cries-when-she-first-sees-lenas-scars





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have so much fucking schoolwork to do but i spent three hours on this at 4 am anyway
> 
> [leslie knope voice] oh. this is bad. i should not have done this.

“You can ask me about them if you want.”

Kara blinks as she looks up at Lena, fingers stilling in the pattern she was tracing over her hip. Lena’s lying on her back with Kara curled up into her side, their mostly bare skin papery soft against each other. Her chest rises and falls in time with the quiet ticking of her watch on the nightstand.

“About… what?”

“My scars.” Lena opens her eyes and turns to meet Kara’s stare, looking a little tired, a little nervous, a little guarded. “You’ve been staring.”

Kara’s fingers curl in apologetically, leaving her fist resting lightly just above the waistband of Lena’s shorts. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” The smile Lena gives her is slow, measured, expectant. “You took it better than most.”

Kara tries not to grimace. “Have people taken it badly?”

Lena closes her eyes again and turns her face back to the ceiling. The sheets bunch under her shoulders with her shrug.

“I’ve had… a variety of reactions,” she admits. “Some worse than others.”

The thought of someone disparaging Lena because of them sets off a quiet anger in a corner of her heart.

“You don’t deserve that.”

Lena laughs softly. “Don’t worry. My mother is the only one who’s yelled at me for it. Most people are just overwhelmed with how bad they feel for me.” Her eyes flit open again. “Somehow that bothers me more.”

Kara opens her hand and runs her palm over Lena’s belly, avoiding the raised lines on her hips. 

“My first girlfriend cried, you know,” Lena continues. “When she first saw them. She kept going on about how hard it must have been. I guess I… appreciate the sentiment. And that she cared about me enough to cry. But I just ended up feeling like I scared her,” she chuckles. “She’d get so upset. I started trying to cover them up more after that.”

Kara hides her grimace in Lena’s hair, pressing a soft kiss to the curve of her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to feel like you need to hide.”

Lena laughs listlessly. “Thanks.” 

There’s a pause as Kara lightly traces the rungs of her ribs, listening to the steady beat of her heart.

“I guess I’m just frustrated how people just assume it’s such a huge tragedy,” Lena says after a while. “There’s a set story around it. It doesn’t actually matter if I’ve ever talked about how I felt.”

Kara breathes lightly, her mouth still pressed to Lena’s skin.

“So how did you feel?”

Lena’s heartbeat picks up, if only for a second, and Kara stops her feather light touches to drape her arm over Lena’s torso and hold her closer.

“Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

Lena swallows and shakes her head, leaning a little into Kara. 

“It’s okay. I just…” She sighs. “I don’t really like answering that.”

Kara scoots a little higher to kiss the side of her head.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

Lena snorts. “That’s just it, though. I want to talk about it, but I…” She swallows again. “I’m afraid.”

Kara runs her hand up and down Lena’s arm.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Of not… not being _authentic_ enough,” she laughs. “I’m afraid that I’ll come off as if… as if I’m not appreciating the weight of it all.”

Kara shakes her head. 

“They’re your scars,” she murmurs. “You know better than anyone how much they weigh.”

It’s quiet for a long time. Kara listens to the steady rush of air as Lena breathes, in, out, in, out…

“Each one of them has a story,” she says quietly. “I can remember what happened, how it happened.” 

Kara shuffles a little to give Lena more room when she makes to move the arm that pressed inbetween them, reaching down to trace the thick, jagged but completely white scar on the outside of her right thigh.

“This one was the first,” she says, voice dropping to an almost whisper. “It was with a pocketknife. I was sixteen, home for the summer, and just starting to have my… episodes. I went to my room after arguing with Lex and I- it felt like I was in physical pain, like I couldn’t breathe, and I was scared. Desperate. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I was alone, I had no one to talk to and I wanted… I needed some sort of proof, something I could actually see. Something to prove that it was real and I wasn’t going insane.” She laughs at that. “Well. In a manner of speaking.”

And Kara waits quietly inbetween Lena’s long pauses, trying to just listen. To just hear what Lena has to say, what she wants to share. 

Lena slowly clasps her hand over the thin line running vertically down her wrist just next to her tendon, the one faint enough that it doesn’t show after a layer of foundation.

“This one was my first attempt,” she says simply. “I managed to graduate to razors when I went to college. They were easier to hide than knives. The cuts leave thinner scars, too. It was my first semester and I failed my first midterm.” She stops to laugh, a little sheepishly, her smile curling lopsidedly. “I know it sounds so trivial now but at the time… I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like the world was ending. I didn’t know how I was going to tell my mother. The only way I could retake it was if I could prove extenuating circumstances.” She sighs sardonically. “Can’t get more extenuating than being dead.”

Kara flinches at the thought, that she could have lost Lena before ever even having the chance to meet her- just a little deeper, just a little delay at the hospital, and that could have been it. She holds in her breath and tugs Lena closer.

“I’m sorry,” Lena murmurs, turning over to hug Kara back.”I’ll stop.”

Kara shakes her head. “You don’t have to.”

Lena runs a hand through her hair and laughs softly. “I’m upsetting you, of course I should stop.”

Kara shakes her head again, nuzzling close into the curve of Lena’s neck. 

“You’re not upsetting me. I’m upset that you had to go through that. There’s a difference. It’s not your fault.”

Lena’s silent for a moment, completely still, until she finally draws her arms tight around Kara’s back and buries her face in blond hair. 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saying that,” Lena whispers. “ I just… everyone always has such visceral reactions to seeing them, I don’t know how to say that they’re just… another part of my life.” She starts running her hand up and down Kara’s spine. “Just records of my life. Sometimes I’m proud to have proof of what I survived. Sometimes I’m sad I had to survive that at all. They’re just… a part of me. It might not have been ideal, but they happened,” she confesses. “I wouldn’t feel like myself without them.”

Kara nods, squeezing her eyes shut against the steady beat of Lena’s heart. 

“I wish we could have met earlier. I wish I could have been there for you.”

Lena sighs into Kara’s hair. “I’m glad we didn’t,” she whispers, “I’m glad we met when we did.”

Kara pulls back only just enough to be able to look into Lena’s eyes, frowning inquisitively. 

Lena laughs softly, touching her forehead to Kara’s. “I wasn’t… the best person back then. I made a lot of mistakes. Got hurt and hurt people. I had to learn a lot of lessons to get here.” She draws in a shaky breath. “I don’t want… I don’t want you to have been a lesson I had to learn. I just want to be with you.”

Kara leans in to touch her lips to Lena’s ever so softly. 

“I’m with you. Always.”

Lena smiles into their kiss, pushing a little more, settling in Kara’s arms, and Kara thinks that maybe this will be enough. She could yearn to turn back time and protect Lena all she wants, but maybe there’s no need for saving, or romantic ambitions to keep her safe; maybe it’s enough, in the grand scheme of things, to just share their story, share their journey; to just be together. 


End file.
